Tag Archive for 'breaking symmetry'

Attribute Dependency: An Inventive Thinking Tool You Can Depend On

Join us for a free Inventive Thinking webinar on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EDT.

Space is limited.

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For those who know SIT
For those who don’t

For those who joined our previous webinar
For those who couldn’t make it

For those who are bosses
For those who have bosses

For those who have participated in SIT workshops
For those who haven’t

For those who deal with products
For those who deal with services

For those who think alone
For those who think together

For those who admire symmetry
For those who wish to break it

For innovation in your job
For innovation in your home

For you, for your friends, for your colleagues – for everyone!

Inspired by SIT’s Attribute Dependency tool and Coca Cola TV commercial


Part 2 of our Inventive Thinking series looks at Attribute Dependency - one of SIT’s most powerful and misunderstood innovation templates.  At its heart, the Attribute Dependency tool is about breaking the symmetrical thinking patterns that can block new thinking.

Continue reading ‘Attribute Dependency: An Inventive Thinking Tool You Can Depend On’

“Happy Equality Day, darling”

Several years ago a friend of mine, who runs an Internet site selling wedding gifts, asked for some ideas to help him differentiate his site from the rest, and thus improve sales.

To find ideas, I decided to apply SIT’s Breaking Symmetry technique with the “wedding day” as the starting point.


To do that, I asked myself in what way is a wedding day symmetrical ?

One simple symmetry that came to my mind is the obvious fact that the husband and wife celebrate their wedding day at the same time.

This helped me come up with the virtual idea or pre-idea (something that is not an idea in itself, but triggers a thinking process that leads to an idea) of having some kind of wedding day that the husband and wife don’t celebrate on the same day.

Here is more or less my line of thought from there: Continue reading ‘“Happy Equality Day, darling”’